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We're getting further down the vampire funnel into allegory and metaphor--what do vampires MEEEEEAAANN??? We start with some historical medical cases that give insight into what people in the past thought of vampires, with the case of Mercy Brown, and an explainer on the vampire-adjacent Chinese mythological creature the Jiangshi. We also look at a few of our favorite (or at least most foundational) examples of vampires in literary or cultural works that are used to explore social and political commentary, including Dracula, Sinners, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Next episode we will look at vampire romance! Further Reading: More about the Jiangshi The case of Mercy Brown Edgar Allan Poe's tenuous connection to vampire lore A Colonial Reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula Psychology Today's analysis of Sinners The Take video on adolescence, adulthood, and vampires in Buffy The Psychology of Trauma in Interview with the Vampire Follow us on Instagram

Stake it or leave it, this is our summer series! We decided to spend our summer deep diving into vampire lore and the ever evolving role of the undead in popular fiction. In our first installment, we define our terms and talk a little about the folklore origins of vampire stories. We also take a quick look at vampires in popular fiction, highlighting a few works and broader trends that we will delve into deeper in future episodes. Further Reading: Britannica entry on vampires Vampires on the mythos fandom wiki Vampire history The migration of paranormal romance The evolving role of vampires in literature Follow us on Instagram

Pop DNA scored an exclusive early interview with up-and-coming debut author Rhonda Watts for an intimate, no-holds-barred interview. Rhonda's debut cozy fantasy book, Spells & Sensibility, is currently on submission, so no spoilers or big news yet, but she wanted to talk about it with her friend Erin, and we recorded the conversation. We talk about Rhonda's writing process, how she got the idea for the book, making time to write with a full-time job, the importance of finding the right agent, and how to approach writing a Jane Austen retelling. Read Rhonda's blog post about the process here. Follow us on Instagram, and get ready for Vampire Summer starting in June!

Rhonda is still in her Medievalist Era and making it everyone's problem, and Erin just wants to talk about some creatures, so you could say this is a typical Pop DNA episode. We continue our exploration of LOTR's relationship to medievalism in pop culture with a look at the beloved Medieval Y2K moment, exemplified in movies like A Knight's Tale, Ella Enchanted, Shrek, and of course the Jackson Lord of the Rings films. And the Star Wars prequels. This early 2000s interpretation of the middle ages is having a moment in current pop culture, and of course influencing the popular medievalism of today. After a brief dip into Tolkien's influence on Dungeons and Dragons, Erin finally gets to talk about all her favorite Tolkien creatures. Goblins, Orcs, Trolls, Balrogs, and other potential fantasy romance love interests. Follow us on Instagram to see things we talk about, and what Rhonda wore to the Hobbit Picnic. Further Reading: Y2K Medievalism and Camp by @zombiegirlzine on Substack Our current appreciation for Y2K medieval is nostalgia for nostalgia Ten Things D&D "borrowed" from Tolkien, but don't tell Wizards of the Coast A ranking of Middle-Earth creatures A little more about Balrogs in case you want to write that Balrog romance

The Medieval Revival of the 1960s and '70s coincided and communicated closely with the LOTR books' surge in popularity at that time. Hippies and other sects of 1960s counterculture adopted the Shire and the Hobbits as their own, and produced expressions of art and culture that Tolkien was really kind of a curmudgeon about. In this episode we explore how medievalism (or MODievalism) permeated 1960s pop culture, in art, literature, media, and fashion. We also look at how different versions of Middle Earth were envisioned by various artists, from those influenced by the hippies' love for the books, to the artist Alan Lee, whose work reflected a reverence for Tolkien's particular preferences and went on to influence the aesthetics of the Peter Jackson films. See the images we reference on our Instagram. Further Reading: LitHub article on Alan Lee's illustrations American Cinematographer article on visualization in the Jackson films Collection of Tolkien's own drawings and paintings Sampling of LOTR book covers Hobbits and Hippies article from BBC Anti-War Adoption of The Lord of the Rings paper Medieval revival of the 1960s and 1970s blog post

This episode is all about how the Victorian era's culture and politics shaped J. R. R. Tolkien and, by extension, the world of Middle Earth. We start with a look at the Grotesque vs. the Romantic Middle Ages as defined by medievalist David Matthews, and how each approach was at play in the late 19th century Medieval Revival. We use Matthews' work as a framework for analyzing the medievalism of The Lord of the Rings, and then take a closer look at the society and politics of the Shire in particular in light of this context. Next episode we'll move into the 1960s and talk about how much hippies loved The Hobbit, and there will probably be some Creature Talk. Further Reading: Setting and Medievalism in Jackson's Lord of the Rings Medievalism: a Critical History by David Matthews The Victorian Medieval Revival William Morris' influence on Tolkien Social hierarchies in Hobbiton Social advancement in Middle Earth societies

Remember when we tried to have a comprehensive discussion of The Lord of the Rings in one 55-minute episode? Turns out there's a lot more to it. In this introduction to our LOTR (Revisited) series, we take a quiz to find out which characters we are, get on a soapbox about how adaptations and their respective source materials are two separate entities, then highlight a few of the topics we plan to delve deeper into over the next few episodes. Inspirations from Norse mythology and medieval epicsLore and races of Middle Earth and their real-world rootsTolkien's Medievalism through the lens of the Victorian eraHippie culture's embrace of The Hobbit and the Medievalism revival of the 1960s and 1970sTolkien's impact in modern fantasy fiction and Medievalism in current popular cultureTolkien's work in context of conversations about race, gender, and power hierarchies in fantasy Hopefully we'll get to all of this. We'll see.

It's that time of year again! We came back from our long hiatus to talk about our favorite TV and movies of 2025, plus a few books, and a few things that were NOT our favorite. First we had to spend a good chunk of time talking about all our feelings on Wicked: For Good, or should we call it... Wicked: For Bad... We also talked about the different common themes or through lines we noticed in the media we were drawn to, before popcorning some of our personal best-of lists. Things we talked about (in order of mention): Wicked: For GoodHamnetSinnersHeart EyesThe DropWolfman The Summer I Turned PrettyHome for ChristmasThe PaperEternityMickey 17K-Pop Demon HuntersThe PittNobody Wants ThisOne of Them DaysMaterialistsThe Chair CompanyPluribusTusk LoveKatabasis Freakier FridayFrankensteinOther things we loved but didn't have time to talk about: Wake Up Dead ManCompanionThe HousemaidWe Bury the DeadSeveranceThe RosesFackham HallThe Wrong ParisMerrily We Roll AlongThe Four SeasonsSirens We'll have a brand new series starting in February revisiting The Lord of the Rings. Please join us!#wickedforgood #sinners #hamnet #bestof2025

Wicked: For Good has officially been released into the world! To celebrate, we are regifting one of our episodes on The Wizard of Oz in which we discussed Wicked. We talked about other adaptations of the 1900 novel, as well, including the 1939 film and the musical The Wiz, focusing on how each new iteration of the story traced shifting ideas in American culture and politics. #thewizardofoz #wicked #thewiz #wickedforgood

We are finally done talking about Sex and the City! We conclude our discussion with an examination of Miranda and Charlotte as foils of one another, and through the lens of archetypes rather than fully developed characters, branching off from our talk last episode about the theory of the three other women as facets of Carrie. This leads to the most interesting part of the entire series, where we delve into the classic four-character-group dynamic, with the archetypes of Patriarch, Matriarch, Craftsman, and Clown. We spend way too much time (probably) talking about famous groups of four characters and how they fit in to these archetypes, leading with Sex and the City, The Golden Girls, and the March sisters from Little Women. We found the pattern fits for the Beatles, the Plastics from Mean Girls, the Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and many more... Further Reading: Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz talks about the archetypes and the Bluth siblings Buzzfeed breaks down a bunch of four-character groups Buzzfeed also highlights how Miranda was always the worst

This episode's title comes from the 1626 play by English dramatist John Ford, because we are very smart. And turns out, it kinda fits for discussing SATC's apparent attitude toward Samantha Jones. We dive into Sam's key romantic relationships to explore how her attitude toward sex and dating was contrasted with that of the other three women, and what that says about how the show viewed women's sexuality. We also discuss different iterations of the fan theory that Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are all really aspects of Carrie's personality. Are they fictional aliases for the women Carrie wrote about in her column? Are they figments of her imagination? Or do each of Carrie's friends represent her id, ego, and superego? That's right, we're getting Freudian. Because we are very smart.

Is Sex and the City a feminist text? That's the question we sort of attempt to answer in this episode, but ultimately we find it more interesting to talk about Sabrina Carpenter's 2025 album Man's Best Friend and the 2009 romcom film He's Just Not That Into You starring Ginnifer Goodwin. Our rambles meander through discussions of how male characters are written on SATC, and how the show explores the assumed gender binary in general, before detouring through more current works of media that are often brought into feminist discourse, like the aforementioned Man's Best Friend, and the 2023 film Barbie. Can a work of fiction BE inherently feminist? Or can it merely propose ideas or messages that the viewer must consume critically and form their own conclusions? If you are still following us on Instagram, thank you for believing in us.

Heads' up that we had several forms of technical difficulties with recording this episode, so apologies in advance for any subpar sound quality! Are we ever ready to talk about Sex and the City? Unclear, but we're going to. In part 1 of our SATC series, we discuss some general thoughts on the HBO show, its origins, and its cultural impact. We also talk about our first experiences with the series before giving a preview of the topics we plan to discuss in more depth over the next four episodes. We're talking about: Gender, Sexuality, and the Male GazePop Feminism from SATC to our current Cultural Landscape (i.e. Barbie, Sabrina Carpenter, etc...)Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte as different aspects of Carrie's personalitySATC and the genre of "Group of Single Women Takes on the World Together"The Pop Culture Afterlife of Sex and the City (The Carrie Diaries, He's Just Not that Into You, And Just Like That...)The lasting impact of "chick lit" screen adaptations We'll be back next episode for some deep-diving discussions! Follow us Instagram, I suppose.

Welcome to our slightly unhinged summer series, Millennial Falcon! This three-part series is all about the fandoms we've never felt like we were truly a part of until the past few years, our Millennial Falcons, if you will. For Rhonda, that's romance novels, and for Erin it's Star Wars. In our introductory episode, we discuss our histories with our respective Millennial Falcons, why we feel it took us so long to engage with them, and how we feel about those fandoms now. We also talk a little about what we are currently watching and reading. Next time we will talk more broadly about fandom and culture, and the psychology and sociology of popular fandoms. Follow us on Instagram!

In the finale of our The Office series and of our regular season, we look at the show's ties to popular media that came both before and after. Erin did a deep dive into the history of the mockumentary, and you won't believe what the first one was! We also discuss some well-known mockumentary films, like This is Spinal Tap and Best in Show, and works that use mockumentary elements, such as When Harry Met Sally and Arrested Development. Then we explore the stylistic impact of The Office on subsequent American comedy, touching on shows like Parks and Recreation, Superstore, Abbott Elementary, and, somehow, Game of Thrones. This episode also contains our final Finer Things Club meeting discussing Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, plus what we are currently watching/reading/listening to. For Rhonda, it was lots of Hunger Games. Come back in May for a bonus episode and a couple rereleases of our Summer Theatre Program from 2021! Follow on Instagram, but don't expect too much. :/